Film screening was last night. I hate working in the FA computer lab. Editing is such a horrible process and everybody's at their worst, even me -- sputtering and jabbering at my film partner, being overreactive to the situation at hand, not keeping my cool and just dealing with the situations. But one thing DID lead to another. There seemed to be a crises at every turn. It's the fucking school equipment. Everybody's always switching the settings and then the next people have to switch even more settings which makes it worse for the next person to use the editing equipment -- me.
But we did hand in our movie, and it was screened. The auditorium roared with cheer when I announced that the film was only six minutes. Most of the films up until that point had been ten, twenty minute numbers.
But the movies were good! I have such high expectations of myself, especially when it comes to film. I don't want to make a bad film -- I'd rather get snarly and sputter messages of doom at nobody (when I'm really being sarcastic. . . not for a second did I think that we'd not get a movie in. . . it's just fun to play up the "pissed off, doom messenger" as a way of blowing off steam) but it probably comes across as if I'm a CENTAUR GOON.
Ugh. I put myself through a bundle of emotions last night! J. and I cut out early from the screening. I was hungry, tired, and still feeling mean. We got pizza. I just ate some! I'm a TWINKIE.
Johnson goat ruckus fortnight on the yexers river sunday afternoon boris in the yard, a stick in his hand. I'm bashing my face against a disembodied, genderless back. Swans, fjords, georgetown riots, 1896, 1896 -- battle for the square, 15 injured, brunch was somber the next day. The laternmen were killed and the city remained dark at night for weeks while the baroness took time off to find someone to replace her as FETUS.
A cough or illness will excavate the sliver of ice from a writer’s heart. The heart will push the ice through the author’s throat where it will latch onto the vocal chords. This will cause the writer to cough, cough, cough for weeks. The ice, exposed and free like a demon, will fill the apartment and the demon’s host will land into bed. The place gets dirty. Beer cans and scores of yellow bowls litter the counter tops. Newspapers and dirty envelopes get scattered onto the chairs. The litter box goes to shit and the cat never shuts up about it. In the meantime, even at two a.m., the rooms are filled with the cough, cough, cough of the ice: a sliver into your sleep.
The fastest way to get to sleep in this situation is to pat the cougher’s back, lightly. Don’t overdue it or you’ll seem useless. If the back is tapped lightly enough the coughs will probably subside at a faster rate. In extreme cases, go sleep elsewhere, although it’s probably better to bring a glass of water before “jumping ship.”
If you plan on sleeping on the couch, try making breakfast the next morning. Get up a half-hour early, put on the coffee, make some eggs and set the day on a good note. At this point, you can feel a little used. You can consider the fact that you have your own particular life to run and that there’s schedules that you have to keep. Feel indignant, but keep it below the surface. Maintain a straight face and put in the effort. Have fun with it. This is a form of healing we’re talking about.
Say “yes” when the writer looks up from a book and says, “We should buy martini glasses. Let’s go to the drug store.” You stare at the book, a feminist anthology of some form, and wonder if the writer has just read an erotic short starring a man named Vincent.
In the drug store, peruse the aisles and look at the appliances you sort of want but can’t really afford. When you finally find the martini glasses, things turn for the worse because there are two types of glasses: one glass has a straight stem, and the other glass has a squiggly stem. When asked which one you should buy, say, “It doesn’t matter, but…”
“What do you mean, ‘but.’”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The writer, with a neon-blue sliver piercing the chest, chooses the straight stem – the good stem. “These ones come with a box.”
Agree with this statement and offer to pay. If you use the martini glasses, you’ll probably find it easier to sleep through another cough-filled night. If you do wake up, proceed to tap the back, lightly.
Say “yes” when the writer, after a severe coughing fit, asks if it’s a good idea to go to the beer and wine on a weekday and watch bad movies on the couch. The coughing fits turn for the worse and the writer’s chest turns into an echo chamber that sounds like a saxophone that’s been put through a rinse cycle then played through a moose’s severed nose.
The house is the messy bedroom of teenager. Useless, “interesting” artifacts adorn the room from recent use: a parasol cover, fireworks, little foam pads, notebooks and magazines that talk politico. The lights are off and the TV glows television-blue on the couch. This is a good opportunity to sit with a folder and catch up on some work. Mid-way through the movie, another crises arises in the writer after a coughing fit. “What am I to do?” she asks, suddenly confused and outraged. “Should I register for summer courses or should I work in the SUB?”
Although it may confuse you to have this question suddenly thrown in your face, take it seriously and ask an obvious question. “What do you want to do?”
At this point, you learn about the dozen or so conflicts that interlace between a summer as a student or a summer as a working person. The writer’s fear of signing into another loan and the fear of spending the summer with the wrong people (the people from work, or the peers from school?). Pause the DVD player and say, “Both?”
Writers naturally find a lot of conflict in life, which really helps them write. The writer usually knows what choice to make, but needs to explain the resolution, the rising action of the possibilities before announcing the choice, the grand decision. The writer has decided to work a summer job at the “Empire Records” of book stores.
The cough keeps hanging in the writer’s throat. Horribly, it sometimes feels like what being a parent would feel like: nights of interrupted sleep only to attend to a noise no one likes to hear, including the writer, who says, “I feel so guilty,”
Shirk the comment and say there's nothing to feel guilty about.
If you haven't already checked this site out. . .
audio horse
http://svt.se/hogafflahage/hogafflaHage_site/Kor/hestekor.swf
You can fuck with other nigger's shit but you can't be fuckin' with mine!
That's right. Oh, yes. That's the way it is.
Strange night. . . went to Felicita's and got drunk for free at the bookstore staff party. Then I went and edited my movie, which proved to be difficult. "Where do all of the drunk cords go? They don't know where to go!" Finally managed to hook everything up but only managed to capture and log about a third of the footage. I hope we can get this all together and edited for Tuesday.
After that I took the bus downtown, read some poetry, then met up with the crew at the Sticky Wicket, which WAS not supposed to happen. We were with some trouble maker who got herself kicked out from BBJ's the week before and the Simian Bouncer had a hard on or something and wouldn't let us in because of her.
Then we went to the Brickyard for pizza and more beer. Then it was sleepy time.
Nothing to do today, except a billion things that I'm not going to do, except laundry, and filling up some empty pipes, then emptying them again.
Braun manipulator truth got friends in the fight reward or forget the yoohoo mother fuckers.
There are only so many advantages I can take advantage of. Some go to the martyr bin, hoisted in my lobe as a reminder of what happens when I misuse responsibility.
I've been thinking: should I just not do one of my assignments?
No. I should do it. But I'm so strange when it comes to calling upon the public for information. I mean, shouldn't I just eat olives and write poetry on the beach? Shouldn't I be stealing cars to afford a meth habit?
Moving on . . .
Show is tomorrow! S-L and some other fuckers are playing. It's a gonna be a fun meatball! I mean show. I think we're ready. Glad our first show is on a Tuesday and not a Friday where there are many people expecting polished, non-human sounds coming from speakers they've NEVER EVEN LOOKED AT.
Art vs Job
Art vs Art would be a lot better.
I'm thinking of growing a beard. But I'll probably let it grow for about a week then I'll say, "What was I thinking? This isn't me! This is that funny clown man who stands on the corner saying cute things to little boys."
It's Quote Time
"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about."
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
"Why'd you open your bong hole you smelly hippy? You'd sacrifice a beautiful woman to save a moderately attractive monkey?"
THIRTY-FOUR LINES ABOUT HORSES
If you slice open the brain of a dead horse you'll often find
tiny hooves imbedded in the centre of each lobe.
From the tops of hills horses can see the sea.
When a horse first senses the approach of spring
he will place his lips three inches from the left ear
of another horse and stand like that all afternoon.
Horses stare at the road and never move their heads
even when trucks full of horses roar by.
It's bad luck to argue about horses.
There is a herd of wild horses on the moon.
When a horse is shot horses all over the world tremble.
A horse in Blind River, Ontario, has a small bank account.
There are no horses in British Columbia.
A lie about a horse is not a real lie.
Horses love cigar smoke.
A horse knows when you have bet on him.
In 1949, a pilot, having had an argument with his fiancée
pushed her horse out of a plane flying over Toronto at
3000 feet.
LSD had no effect on horses.
Horses love the smell of telephones.
Horses love to carry beautiful naked women on their bare backs.
Horses love to have their eyes kissed by nuns.
Horses dream they are horses.
The average horse wants to be famous some day.
Horses love people with bad breath.
Horses are proud of their beautiful bodies.
A horse will develop high blood pressure if you cut off its tail.
Horses like to fantasize about making love to whales.
Horses love to eavesdrop on human conversation.
Horses barely tolerate the chirping of birds.
A horse will go out of its way to avoid a Seventh Day Adventist.
Horses are particularly fond of pregnant women.
When a horse is shown pictures of beautiful mountains
its brain begins to produce theta waves.
Horses love to be visited by horses from other countries.
Horses hate it when you run your fingernails down the blackboard.
- David McFadden
I've learned that the Bush family are full fledged Satanists. They worship an owl.
And apparantly under the Patriot Act, if there's a protest, and a protester blocks traffic, then ALL protesters get to go to jail for LIFE in these concentration camps that the US government is building out in the bush.
Sing it with me!:
Life is getting worse
Life is getting worse
Life is getting worse
and worse
and worse
For Americans. Which, by default, will probably include most of Canada.
I heard Paul Martin speak on the radio last night. What bag of shit that guy is. He's trying to bring up enough scandals so as to postpone the election and so he can push his dirty fingers into all of us.
Mugs. Mugs and mugs and mugs and mugs and mugs. So many mugs.
Still coming out of this mild cold. And I feel drained of late, with everything I have to do. March has always been one of those months to just get through. The light at the end of the tunnel is actually a campfire filled with the decrepet and cowboys that should've died a long time ago. They're all shitting around with bleeding tonsils, playing campfire songs without strings on their guitars. Blood spits out from their throats and flecks their teeth or vapourizes in the fire. But it's a light, dammit! And they'll fill up your jug with that good ol' Mountain Dew.
Then I had workshop, which was held outside, in the sun, on the grass. There was even a guitarist off in the distance strumming melodies with some girl who had dread-locks. The prof suggested a joint, and I internally agreed. And everyone looked good out there in the sun.
Then grad lounge for some iced tea. Then the film meeting. After three months of work, we finally have the screenplay done. Holy shit it's taken a long time. But we didn't want to go for humour, or politics, so it takes a while for things to come together, and to relate everything. . . and yeah. Should be good. We have our shooting days scheduled, and we'll be filming in the horrible little grocery store just down the street for a short scene. I don't know why I included that final fragment. At any rate, I'm tired. I'm home.
I biked to, and back from, school today. I feel healthy after eating a large bowl of J's homemade soup.
Rehearsed today. . . wrote in the morning. Plan on finishing the bottle of wine tonight.
Went to a party on Friday. A party where my group of friends were the older people in the party. So we sat on the couch and drank while people fell around the house. P got a nudie pic of some crazy woman. She later insulted us so I leaned over and said, "Yeah, well, we got a picture of your tittie." She left saying, "This party sucks."
My computer at home is all busted up to shit. So I've been away. Also been busy.
This is the event that has been bugging me.
A couple weeks ago at a posh breakfast restaurant downtown, J and I ordered some food. I ordered eggs benny with smoked salmon, and J orderered something else. We were hungry, we were hung over. Our food came, and I looked down at the dish, and something seemed off. I figured it would be cold, or something, but it was hot, it was fresh, and when I took my first bite, it was good. I ate half of my benny and a schwack of potatoes. Then, when I poked my fork into a potato, bugs scurried out from underneath it. I had never seen bugs of this kind before, and they were in my food.
They brought me a new dish, although my appetite was sufficiently ruined, and I didn't have to pay (although I wouldn't have minded, provided there were no bugs). So that's that.
In other news. . . I have some shows coming up and I've been a busy rat. Came down with a sickness this morning. Something feels off. My throat aches and I've been coughing. I'm not prone to illness.
Oh! I had a lucid dream the other night. In my dream, I was in my old house, staring at a mirror, and I looked different. I had a lot more hair, and it was long. So I was like, WTF, man? Oh, a dream.
I had read up about it, and an article informed me that when you realize you're in a lucid dream, you gotta keep your cool, else you'll wake up. So I kept my cool. But I didn't do anything extraordinary. I didn't fly, I didn't rip my own ass off. Instead, I went in to my bedroom and there was this being of light standing near my bed. Instead of asking it questions, I walked around it, like I was being drawn in to a toilet flushing, or a spiral of sorts.
Next time I really gotta do something else. That's my second lucid dream. The third one, I'll fly. I'll fly, I'll rip my own ass off. I'll shoot grandfathers out of my ears.
Trying to rework a fiction. An experimental piece, and I'm debating if I should take out the experimentational aspects of it. I'm not pushed for words, but man am I ever pushed for structure. I'm also thinking of making it a two-part, which should be fun. That way I can get away with a sort of anti-climax in the first story, although I do want it to stand on its own.
Last night was fun. Went to the bar, then worked on a screen play, then went to another bar with J and B and M came, too. I didn't drink that much, and I've been meaning to check up on my VISA balance.
That is all.